Compliance Perspectives: The End of the Privacy Shield
Nota Bene Episode 89: European Q3 Check In - Merger Clearance and Data Protection Court Rulings and Brexit Updates with Oliver Heinisch
On July 9, 2025, the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs ("JURI") published a study examining how generative artificial intelligence ("AI") interacts with European Union copyright law....more
The Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") ruled that modifying temporary variables in the working memory of a computer without enabling the reproduction or further execution of such a program does not constitute...more
The Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") recently ruled that design works must be protected by copyright in the EU regardless of their country of origin. This decision rejects the application of the reciprocity...more
The French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) recently ruled that the principle of exhaustion of rights, which allows consumers to resell physical copies of video games without the consent of the publisher, does not apply to...more
In its recent judgment in Sony Interactive Entertainment v. Datel, the CJEU ruled on the specific copyright protection of computer programs under Directive 2009/24/EC (Case C‑159/23). The CJEU found that while “cheating...more
Is Art. 17 DSM Directive compatible with EU fundamental rights? Today, the CJEU has given the answer, in one of the most awaited rulings of the year: yes – because of the safeguards of Art. 17 DSM Directive (C-401/19). The...more
Recent developments at the CJEU give some shape to the practical implications of Article 17 of the Copyright Directive. 7 June 2021 was the implementation deadline for the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive...more
The EU General Court (GC) recently ruled on copyright protection for standardisation documents, such as DIN (German Institute for Standardisation) documents. The GC ruled that, under certain circumstances, such documents can...more
The last year of the 2010s has been prolific in terms of important new pieces of legislation and case law within the European Union, and in France and Germany in particular. Indeed, the European Parliament and the EU Council...more
The CJEU in its Tom Kabinet judgment has ruled that the supply of e-books qualifies as “an act of communication to the public” under the InfoSoc Directive instead of “a distribution to the public” as is the case with physical...more
On 16 May 2019, the CJEU Advocate General delivered his opinion in Spedidam, following the request for a preliminary ruling from the French Supreme Court on whether the French legal framework allowing the French National...more
In December 2018, CJEU Advocate General Szpunar took the view that the reuse of a sound sequence in a new song (referred to as sampling) without the author’s permission violates copyright law (case C-476/17 – Moses Pelham et...more
Earlier this month, the Court of Justice of the European Union held that the taste of a food product cannot be classified as a work protectable by copyright. This decision appears to be in line with U.S. Copyright law,...more
This week, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled that the taste of cheese does not enjoy any copyright protection (C-310/17)....more
Can the Federal Republic of Germany invoke a copyright on military status reports? This is the key question currently before the European Court of Justice (CJEU) (Case Ref. C-469/17)....more
A Swedish preliminary ruling procedure is currently pending before the European Court of Justice (CJEU) and represents the latest in a run of rulings on the scope of the distribution right under Article 4 of the InfoSoc...more
Only two weeks ago, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) referred various questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concerning the liability of the video platform YouTube....more
This is, in essence, the fundamental question that has been submitted to the CJEU in the case C-310/17 (Levola Hengelo v. Smile Foods). ...more
The phenomenon of so-called “Hate Speech” has been in the public eye for a while now, but particularly in German news. Hate speech denotes verbal attacks and accusations based on personal attributes such as race, religion,...more
On 29 November 2017, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) handed down a decision on a video recording service that stores TV programmes online in a cloud (C-265/16 – VCAST). ...more
With decision of 8 May 2017, the regional Court of Berlin referred to questions for preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The court is concerned whether the rules on the press publishers’...more